Haiti, post independence era

By Jan.1804, local forces defeated an army sent by Napoleon Bonapare,established independence from France, and renamed the area Haiti. The impending defeat of the French in Haiti was widely credited with contributing to Napoleon's decision to sell the Louisiana territory

to the United States in 1803. Haiti is the World's oldest black republic and the second oldest

republic in the wester Hemisphere, after the Unit

ed States. Although Haiti actively assisted the independence movements of many Latin American States , the independent nation of the former slaves was excluded from the hemisphere's first regional meeting of independent nations, in Panama in 1826, and did not receive U.S. diplomatic recognition until 1862.